Jewish Culture
By zevi770 · April 24, 2016
Two nights ago I had the privilege and pleasure of leading a Seder of former immigrants from the Soviet Union.
Passionately Jewish, yet alas I was saddened that such a fundamental part of the Jewish faith namely the existence of two holy temples – the central function of Jewish life for over eight centuries – and the hope of the third, restoring a messianic utopian future was simply unknown.
As one lady told me, “They closed our synagogues – we know nothing.”
I recall at the International Conference of Chabad Rabbis, Yudi Edelstien, a former prisoner of conscience in Soviet Russia said a similar story – “he was released and arriving in Israel, there was a party to be held in his honor at the kotel – his Russian taxi driver had never heard of the kotel!”
This book is my humble attempt to distil the Jewish culture – by that I mean those aspects of Judaism deeply embedded in the hearts of all Jews as the Talmud relates, “as the Jews had self-sacrifice to circumcise their children (though the many evil decrees, trying to forbid it) hence this mitzvah (amazingly) has remained invincible.”
Yes the Jewish people the world over circumcise their children – so by focusing on what is sacred we see the spirit, the soul of a people!
- Israel – Israel is the birthplace, the home and the longing of the Jewish people.
I recall flying for the first time into Israel and on the plane flying in, I felt I was coming home.
Walking the streets with Jewish names, seeing coins with Jewish dates, I realized for the first time that I was more at home in Israel then in my native country.
You see, there are two kinds of lands, a land that its people make her, so the temperament of say the French, the Russians etc. create that country; then there is a land that makes the people.
A true home is far more than a place to live – it is a place of love – a place as God says, that his eyes are upon it from the beginning of the year till its end.
A place which naturally corrects mistakes, as God says “Israel unlike Egypt is not watered automatically, rather one must lift their eyes heavenward and responsively God sends rain.”
- The Torah
Have you ever seen a Jew kiss a Torah?
With utmost love, as if to the most affectionate grandfather he tenderly, reverently, gives it a kiss.
The Torah scrolls had Jews risk their lives to protect it, for it is the soul of the people.
As Rabbi Saddia Goan says, “Our nation is exclusively based on the Torah.”
In these five books, dictated by God to Moses, our people for the past three thousand three hundred years, faithfully, reverently read one of its 54 chapters weekly.
It must be written by a scribe knowledgeable in the thousands of laws on how it may be written.
Each Torah is a exact copy from one before.
In fact, though separated for thousands of years, when we match the Torah scrolls say of the Yemenite Jews to the Russian, there was a question only of a single letter (which by studying ancient Torahs was resolved.)
Imagine a book, copied in different lands, containing thousands of words, and though thousands of years have passed, each book an exact copy!
- The Mishnah
The Mishna was the first time Jewish laws, Biblically based, was written down.
The Jewish belief is that when God gave us the Torah he also explained it; hence though through millenia others would claim it, only the Jewish people understood it.
The Mishna was compiled by Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi who lived in the years 135–219; at that time Jews were spread over the Roman empire, hence lacking the homogeneity of being in close proximity to the teachers of the explanation (called “The Oral Torah” for it was taught orally from master to disciple for close to a thousand five hundred years) Rabbi Yehudah Hanasi wrote down the explanations.
- The Talmud
The Talmud followed a few hundred years later, mainly in Babylonia (Babylon, present day Iraq) it is a classic work of both legalistic opinion in true legal style comprised of legal opinions by Rabbis who dealt the legal rulings, as well as containing much other Jewish wisdom.
For millenia it has been studied – its brilliant style of question and answers makes a sharp mind sharper and to this very day is studied many hours a day in many Yeshivahs.
- The Yeshivah
If the Jewish people are anything, they are students.
The Yeshivah is where young men study – it was the greatest hope of every mother and father that their child should study and master the Talmud.
- The Rebbe
Rabbis, Tzaddikim (saintly Rabbis, often possessing miraculous blessings) and Rebbes (Tzaddikim, but also followers of the mystical Chassidic tradition begun by Rabbi Yisroel Baal Shem Tov) are the head, the glue, the aspiration, the role models of the people.
From Moses down to the well know Lubavitcher Rebbe – these great saints (among them, a few women such as Devorah, Esther etc.) were so one with the Torah, as Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi said – “I had a choice to go to Vilna to study Torah or Mezritch where they transform you into the Torah!” (Mezritch was the seat of the Maagid, the disciple and successor of the Baal Shem Tov.)
Without these giants of spirit, humble teachers and ultimately perfect role-models of adherence to God despite any outside pressure, the Jewish people would certainly succumb to outside pressures.
Their example, dedications and teachings are what caused them to be held in nothing short of a reverence, as you could imagine the Jews had for Moses.
On a mystical level we are all in fact the same generation, being reincarnated, generation after generation, fueling new advances in spiritual growth and the Moses – the Rebbe of every generation, for every generation has a single soul called “the collective soul” from which all other Jewish souls are offshoots – deeply cares and tends to his flock.